Thursday, July 26, 2007

Back in August, Bollywood Blog published this photo of Akshaye, looking bald.Then today I saw this one on the Times of India website.It appears somebody's been very naughty with Photoshop. (Side note: did you know Adobe has an official statement about how "Photoshop" isn't a verb and that I should have just said "It appears somebody's been very naughty enhancing an image using Adobe® Photoshop® software"? Isn't it a mark of market domination if your product is the standard vocabulary for whatever it is that you make/do - like Oreo and Kleenex?)

By way of an update on yesterday's technical woes, below is a screenshot of my episode of Koffee with Karan playing on VLC (which, much to its credit, did play the file). The whole show looks like this and has no sound.It's especially hard to resist youtube when a legal product behaves like this.

Update to post (July 29, 2007): just to be clear, I think the bald photo is the faked one. I'm basing this opinion on how fuzzy and matte it looks around the back of his head.

I think Adobe's battle was lost before they even started - "photoshop" is used as a verb even in Slovene everyday language, we just add Slovene verb endings. Ditto with google and probably loads of other things that I just can't think of atm.

ggop - I never even thought about it with Google, although I don't often use "google" as a verb. I do, however, use its search engine, blog hosting, web hosting, file storage, documents, website analytics, translators....

Aspi - either one of them is a bit sloppily done or the other is immaculately done. Your call :)

It's a torrent and I dont know if you've joined the worldwide community of movie thieves so in case you haven't, you'll have to download Azureus or BitLord (only if you have a really fast connection and a really fast computer) so you can download the file. Sounds like a lot of trouble but it isnt really.

I am so mad at Times of India, i could burn down the whole building where that rag is lodged. thanks for catching it Beth1 I saw the same story too but the image didn't load for me. What are they thinking? Akshaye's hair doesn't look that bad and he has always been open about it. UGH!

You're never going to believe this... I went to the press conference of Gandhi, My Father - and your beloved Akshaye was there! I stood up and asked a question which was for the entire cast, and Mr Khanna himself told me that he's never asked that question and that he's always wanted to answer it :)

Check out my blog for pics (they're a bit dark...but whatever - I WAS THERE!)

The bald one is definitely photoshopped. It's easier to make a bald head than to put in close cropped hair. But you can tell because the shadows on his bald plate are wrong and the edge of the head is too sharp.

I think the bald one is the real one because there was this story about how Akshaye wanted a clean pate and cute everything off and Akshaye himself confirmed it. Times of India added bogus hair. He is going bald but his hair doesn't look like that.

Sheetal, I envy you so much. I saw the pics you took too. I think they make him look sexy!

my other filmi projects

Bong Along - a blog on vintage Bengali movies co-written by Indie Quill and me (and perhaps a few very friendly appearances by other friends as well).

Masala Zindabad - the podcast by Indie Quill and me, often featuring other writers and fans as guests. Masala Zindabad is an affectionate and thoughtful look at the broad range of themes that define Bollywood and make Bollywood defy definition. Available at iTunes.

Mysterious Order of the Skeleton Suit - the Agents of M.O.S.S. are a shadowy confederation of like-minded writers, broadcasters, creators, and jetsetters who have banded together in a bold mission to bring international intrigue and pop entertainment to the masses. Can anyone stand in the way of their diabolical schemes?

pragmatics

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